Saddam refuses plea, U.S. helicopter shot down

BAGHDAD, May 15 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein angrily refused to enter a plea after being charged with crimes against humanity today and the US military said a helicopter was shot down near Baghdad in raids that killed at least 41 insurgents.

But Iraq's main Sunni Arab religious group accused US forces of a ''brutal atrocity'' and killing 25 civilians.

The US military said two US soldiers were killed when the helicopter was brought down yesterday in the rural insurgent stronghold of Yusufiya, during a ground and air assault against guerrilla hideouts that killed more than 25 militants.

It was at least the fourth US helicopter downed in Iraq in the past half year and the second in the area in six weeks.

In separate raids in the nearby town of Latifiya on Saturday and yesterday, US forces said they killed 16 suspected al Qaeda militants, including a man wanted for his role in shooting down a US combat helicopter in the Yusifiya area on April 1.

US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson said the raids were part of an operation against ''terrorists''; US military statements said several women and children were ''inadvertently wounded by shrapnel'' and treated in the site or evacuated, but made no mention of civilians being killed.

''We hold the Iraqi government and the occupiers responsible for this brutal atrocity,'' the influential Muslim Clerics Association said as politicians struggle, under US pressure, to form a unity government in which Sunnis will play a role.

Formally charging Saddam with crimes against humanity for the first time since the trial started in October, chief judge Raouf Abdul Rahman read out a 15-minute recitation of killings, torture, imprisonment and executions that followed an attempt on the Iraqi leader's life in the Shi'ite town of Dujail in 1982.

In court wearing a dark suit and white shirt, Saddam dismissed the charges saying he had immunity and was still president. The judge entered a ''not guilty'' plea on his behalf.

''This statement cannot influence me or shake a hair of my head,'' Saddam said, holding a Koran. ''I am president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqi people.'' The judge replied: ''You were, but not now.'' The case stems from the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on Saddam's life in 1982 in the village of Dujail.

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